Editorial: How'd you like to need a permit just to worship?

How would you like to ask the government's permission to go to church?

How would you like hearing from the federal government that, because yours is not an officially registered religion, you can't go to church — but that if you spend years navigating an inscrutably opaque bureaucracy, you might hope to emerge at the other end of the maze with a certificate of authenticity?

How would you like it if everyone acknowledges your beliefs, but nonetheless is going by the book and treating them as ersatz because of a decades-old paperwork error that the government refuses to correct?

Yeah, you'd be ready for a war dance too.

The analogy is not precise and the history and present-day politics are tangled, but fundamentally the Winnemem Wintu, in the eyes of the federal government, are not "officially" an Indian tribe. They thus don't qualify for the modest accommodations that federal law and policies would otherwise allow so they can peacefully hold a rite-of-passage ceremony at the tip of the McCloud Arm of Lake Shasta. The Forest Service in the past has staged "voluntary" closures, which the tribe calls failures. After years of fruitlessly lobbying the Forest Service to formally close a small section of the massive lake, the tribe and supporters this weekend have said they'll turn to civil disobedience, planning a "blockade" of the disputed stretch as a test run for a ceremony this summer.

The martial rhetoric and the talk of seizing a reach of the popular lake rub some locals the wrong way. That's understandable to a point. Nobody else, after all, is allowed to just claim a piece of the lake for themselves. But a little respect for the traditions of the north state's original inhabitants isn't much to ask. Nor is a little understanding of their bind and their frustration.

Sure, the Forest Service can't casually close public areas. Sure, there have to be rules. But it's preposterous that so much red tape would stand in the path of a simple weekend ceremony. Surely the Forest Service can find a better accommodation.

In the meantime, we hope boaters spending Memorial Day weekend on the lake can enjoy the nearly 50 square miles of channels and coves that will remain unblocked, and that everyone can simply keep cool heads.